Makerere University saga has taken a new twist, with the Vice Chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe blaming the current impasse at the institution on Members of Parliament, who reportedly asked him to restore sanity at the oldest University in Uganda.
He says he is simply executing the MPs’ orders.
Nawangwe made the remarks today while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Education where the University Administration and University Council had been summoned to explain the impasse at the institution.
He was responding to concerns raised by MPs who accused him of being hot headed, refusing to dialogue with the staff saying this has left the University in the current predicament.
He denied any wrongdoing, arguing that whatever disciplinary actions taken on errant staff was endorsed by the Education Committee that requested the University Administration to restore sanity at the University.
“When I was here, you ordered me to go and stop that impunity; that indiscipline in Makerere University that otherwise we aren’t doing our children a service. What we are doing is exactly what you requested us to do- of bringing back sanity and discipline in the University,” Nawangwe said.
Nawangwe also defended his decision to have the school of law closed saying it was because students have spent four weeks without studies and not as a result of the legal opinion which he says had wrong quotations of the law.
Workers Representative lawmaker, Margaret Rwabashaija, lashed out at Nawangwe for wrongly dismissing leaders, noting that this will always backfire as the same leaders have the capability of moblising their colleagues against him.
“You can’t just wake up and say that someone is disturbing the peace of the University and then write a letter suspending someone and the other day you propose to close down the Law School because they are misadvising. These people are not your Shamba boys or house maids, they are academicians just like you and they are likely to have the same mind with you, they can’t just keep just saying yes to whatever you say and you expect them to kneel down before you,” Rwabashaija said.
She called on the University administration to exhaust all means of dialogue and talks, arguing that the people Nawangwe is determined to suspend are his equals and therefore, there is need to treat them as his contemporaries if the current situation is to be solved.
“It should not be like a reign of terror being unleashed at the University where when one sneezes, he is suspended. Without undermining the integrity of the institution, let’s put aside our personal egos and focus on the best we can do,” Rwabashaija added.
The Chairperson of the University Council, Rhona Magara appealed to the Committee to allow them finalise their investigations into the matter.
